


Earnestly Yours

by Gayneral



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Drama, Flashbacks, Friendship/Love, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gayneral/pseuds/Gayneral
Summary: If Stan would be a body part, he would be the heart, keeping the system alive but so vulnerable, the soil for Emotions to grow out of wildly and untamed.Kyle would be the Brain, collection of an endless stream of information, ruled by logic, thinking and thinking until the end.They just did not fit well together.In which Kyle reflects on his friendship with Stan through the years, or the lack thereof.





	Earnestly Yours

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've posted anything (and since I've written properly)  
> Life has been a mess and writing has been more difficult than usual, tho I've been trying to get back into it in the last month.  
> This oneshot was actually written before Moondust, back in March but shit went down for me as well as my beta-reader so we've only managed to get it ready to post now.  
> Enjoy!

__

If Stan would be a body part, he would be the heart, keeping the system alive but so vulnerable, the soil for Emotions to grow out of wildly and untamed.  
Kyle would be the Brain, collection of an endless stream of information, ruled by logic, thinking and thinking until the end.

They just did not fit well together.

**

Things had gone wrong in so many places, Kyle thought as he stared down at the picture in his hands. It was old in a way that only Photographs can get that have been made before everything was kept digitally, yellow and fainted at the corners.  
The evidence of how much time had passed, the visible proof of how much had changed, made Kyle’s heart heavy.  
It was as if the boy in the picture was someone completely different.  
He didn’t recognize himself on it, like it wasn’t Kyle Broflovski smiling back at him but some other, happier kid.  
A boy that hadn’t lost his best friend.

Even in fainted colours, Stan’s eyes shone in a breathtaking blue and he watched Kyle out of the Photograph with that open, whole-hearted smile that the Stan of this time hadn’t given him in a long while.  
They were nine when the picture had been taken and it was before Kyle had ever been able to imagine a life without Stan constantly at his side, before they had even considered that they would change drastically enough to fall apart.  
In the Background there’s the Broflovski Backyard, his mother had dragged them outside to take a perfect shot with her new camera and Kyle remembered they had been promised ice cream if they behaved well.

Kyle had been reluctant, even now he still disliked being photographed, but Stan had grabbed him by the shoulder and had said, “This will make a good memory one day” and that was all it had taken to convince Kyle.  
No matter what Stan would’ve said to him that day, Kyle would’ve listened because back then, Kyle had been ready to do anything for Stan, like Stan had been ready to do anything for him.  
When his mother had called out to them to smile for the Camera, Kyle had eyed Stan and all to himself he had thought ‘Super Best Friends forever’.

Kyle threw the Picture face down onto his bed in a fit of sudden anger, feeling as if he had betrayed himself, at the same time scolding his past self for being so damn idiotic and idealistic to believe something could last forever.  
It hadn’t even lasted two years from that day on even if they had dragged on the dead horse on for years to come.

**

Maybe Stan had let go of him as a best friend when he had turned ten.  
Kyle believed that Stan had meant it when he had said that we was ready to search a new best friend, before his parents had gotten back together and everything had fallen back into its usual place.  
But perhaps, even if things had returned to how they had been before, that had been the start of the end, when Stan had decided that he could move on from Kyle.

Through all the years before Stan had been glued to Kyle, inseparable pieces of the same puzzle.  
Though at that time Kyle had been able to function without Stan, but Stan hadn’t been able to be without Kyle.  
It was a part of how Stan was, deeply woven into his core, that he craved and needed things with all of his being, he couldn’t stop things from consuming all of him.  
Like it had send Stan into a dark hole when Wendy had left him, knowing that it wasn’t Kyle and him against the world anymore had been too hard to take.  
Until Stan had been forced to accept it and had made a decision that was promptly taken away from him by his parents.  
But perhaps it had rooted such a deep change in him that even when they had gone back, Stan had never returned to the person he had been before.

Knowing that Stan would not change the world for him anymore had been so odd to Kyle that it had torn the ground away from under his feet when he had noticed it.  
Stan, who had once done anything to get him a new organ, that had said he would not want Kyle to die until he did, had stopped being utterly loyal to him.  
The first time he actively noticed had been when Cartman once more proposed that some terrible thing going on had been Kyles plan all along, and instead of siding with Kyle, Stan had almost supported that ridiculous proposition.

Seeing his best friend glare at him for trying to make a point against something had marked the beginning of the end to Kyle.

Somewhere along the line Stan had grown tired of all the fire burning in Kyle and Kyle had noticed that without Stan cradling the flame in his hands, his anger and passion was all consuming and left nothing but ashes in which Kyle stood, alone.

**

His mother called him from downstairs and tore Kyle out of the depressing trip down memory lane with the promise of food.  
Kyle untangled his awkwardly long legs and rose from his bed, leaving the picture on the blanket without another look.

He found his Mother in the kitchen, a spoon in her hand, leaned over a pot.  
The smell of this night’s dinner was hanging in the air and Kyle inhaled deeply as he stepped into the room, attracting his mother’s attention, who immediately waved him over.  
“Be a dear and set the table“, she said and patted his upper arm with her free hand before directing her concentration to the bubbling food again.  
When he had been thirteen, a growing spurt had set in and ever since Kyle had kept on growing.  
By now he was so tall that he had to lean down to be on an eye level with his mother.

It had saved him from her attempts to run a hand through his hair, that even with tons of hair products still was an unruly mess, or to clean his face with a paper towel as if he was still four years old.  
Kyle grabbed plates out of the cupboard while his Mother ranted about something that had happened in the towns meeting today and arranged them on the table just as his father unlocked the front door and entered.  
He waved to his son and left his coat by the door before he went to greet his wife.

To Kyle it sometimes felt as if his parents were the only ones that still got along but perhaps he only got that impression because he lived right next to the Marsh’s, who were fighting very often these days.

For a while Stan had sought refuge at the Broflovski’s when his father was being a particularly big asshole, asking to spend dinner and sometimes the night at Kyle’s.  
His mother had liked Stan a lot and there hadn’t been a time where she had said no.  
Stan had stayed at Kyle’s place a lot.

When they had grown apart, his mother had asked a lot how Stan was and why he wasn’t coming over anymore but after the fiftieth time that Kyle had said that he really did not know much about Stan these days, he had been fed up with it and had wordlessly left the table.  
His mother had been angry at him for his behavior but from that day on, she had stopped asking.

Kyle wasn’t sure where Stan went to now when his parents were fighting but he saw him hanging out at Starks Pond an awful lot so maybe that was where he went to, getting drunk out of his mind, maybe with Kenny, whom he was the closest with ever since high school.

A part of him still hated the thought of Stan drunk, because Stan was not a nice sort of drunk. Stan was an alcoholic and Kyle knew that Kenny was aware of that and still supplied him with cheap beer or vodka he stole from the place he was working at.  
He had shouted at Kenny for it once, when they had been fifteen, behind the school, pointing his finger accusingly at Kenny like it was all his fault that Stan couldn’t stop turning up in class reeking of alcohol.  
Maybe Kyle had been more angry at himself because he felt like he failed Stan and they had grown apart so much that he no longer had a grasp at what Stan was doing and Kenny was maybe the only one that had.  
So why wasn’t he doing anything?

Kenny had been as calm as always and the fact that he had not been offended at all by Kyle’s words had only angered Kyle more.  
“If I don’t give it to him, he’s going to get it from someone else. At least I can take care of him by drinking with him”  
Kyle had felt so attacked by this that he had shouted “He’s a fucking pathetic alcoholic, he doesn’t need a dumb drinking buddy, he needs help” and had run off.

At home he had cried into his pillow and had only stopped when Ike had knocked at his door to ask him what was up.  
Kyle hadn’t needed to say a word for Ike to understand that it was about Stan.  
Because even when they weren’t best friends anymore, when had it ever not been about Stan.

**

The thing about moving on from someone was that it was as good as impossible when that person was your next door neighbor.  
Even as they grew apart over the years, Kyle saw Stan every day.  
In the morning before they drove to school, in class, in the hallways, after school and on the weekends. Sometimes when Stan didn’t make it to school, Kyle could see him through the window when he helped himself to the beer that his father kept in the fridge.

For a long time, they still referred to each other as best friends even when they spent less and less time together, simply because they knew nothing else, there was no other answer to the question who their best friend was than each other.  
And no longer calling each other their best friend was making the fact that they weren’t anymore too real.  
It was like admitting defeat and they had both been too proud to do it.

Kyle wasn’t sure if he even still had a best friend.  
It wasn’t as if he completely lost contact to Stan or Kenny.  
He enjoyed Kenny’s company when he could get it but these days spending time with Kenny meant spending time with Stan and that made Kyle uncomfortable.  
It wasn’t as much the fact that Stan was in a constant state of tipsiness anymore but the fact that he felt like he was hanging out with a stranger and there was nothing more painful than having to admit to himself that the person he once was closest with was unknown to him now.

Kenny was, next to Craig, the only teenager in south park that was taller than Kyle and after he had outgrown his orange parka, he had presented his handsome face to everyone and at this point there was almost no one that hadn’t been with Kenny at least once before, or hadn’t at least thought about it.  
It was not only his looks, the all charming smile and the long blond hair, but also his laid back personality that attracted people to him. Kenny was easy to get along with, he was easy to like and if Kenny liked someone it was safe he made that someone feel it.  
He was a very hands-on person.  
Sometimes when he did hang out with Stan and Kenny, Kenny had an arm around Stan and it sent a stab through Kyle’s heart.

Through all the years there was a single thing that hadn’t changed, a single truth about Kyle that by now he was afraid would never change.  
Even when they had still been Super Best Friends, Kyle had been in love with Stan, only he hadn’t known about it back then.  
Kyle had noticed when he was thirteen that everything he had felt for Stan was more than friendship and that the reason why he had never looked at anyone twice was because all along his heart had belonged to Stan.

It had sent him into a complete panic and in the first hours after figuring it out for himself he had been so scared that people could read it off his forehead that he was weird in that way.  
But no one had guessed a thing. Besides Cartman, who had never stopped making dumb comments about Stan and Kyle. But instead of getting angry the next time it happened, Kyle had been frozen in place, searching for something in Cartmans eyes that told him if he truly knew.  
Even now Kyle remembered that day, in the locker room after gym class, everyone had been half undressed and for the first time Kyle had stared at Stan’s bare chest, asking himself if maybe that was what he was interested in.

Cartman had stood across of him and had propped one heavy leg up on the bench between them before pointing a chubby finger at Kyle, asking him if he was “Enjoying the view faggot?”  
Kyle had turned away abruptly and Stan had told Cartman to shut the fuck up, adding that no one would like to look at Cartman because he was a rude fatass.

Kyle had tried everything to get himself to stop being in love with Stan.  
He never wanted anyone to find out, especially not Stan because he had once dreamed that Stan knew and he had told him that he couldn’t be friends with him anymore and it had been terrible enough in his mind.  
He didn’t want it to become reality.  
Whenever he felt that sting of jealousy at seeing Stan with Wendy, whom he still followed after like a lovesick puppy even at age fourteen, he felt awful for being that weirdo that had a crush on his best friend.  
Kyle had been convinced that it was not normal to feel this way for Stan and that the only way to keep their friendship safe was somehow getting himself out of this state.

Maybe, he had thought, if he could be attracted to girls like Stan was, they could be as close as they used to be, and Stan wouldn’t think he was stupid for never having a relationship.  
More than once Stan had tried to play matchmaker and Kyle had hated it with all his heart that he couldn’t be thankful for Stans effort, that no matter which girl Stan presented him with, all Kyle could think about was how it would be to kiss Stan.

When they had stopped hanging out so often, Kyle had been convinced that this hopeless crush of his would break off as well but it hadn’t.

**

There had been one particular event when they had been fifteen, which had ultimately marked the sudden end to their friendship.  
It had been a day in summer and they had sat in Stan’s room, on his bed, playing a video game.  
That was, Stan was playing, Kyle had dropped his controller between his legs a while ago, staring at his best friend, dread and nervosity heavy like stones in his stomach.

The sun was shining in through half opened curtains and Stan’s brows were furrowed, deeply focused on taking the enemy base on the screen across of him. At his fifteenth birthday, his parents had gifted him a television for his room so he wouldn’t have to play games in the living room anymore, where his parents usually fought.  
Stan looked so damn gorgeous and Kyle felt like all his love for Stan was stuck in his throat, ready to spill from his mouth like hot liquid.

He had kept all of it hidden from Stan’s sight for years, locked away; eating him up from the inside, but Kyle was not particularly good at keeping burning emotions bottled up.  
Stan finally noticed that Kyle had stopped playing and gave him a prompting look, expecting Kyle to pick up playing.  
But Kyle didn’t, instead he exhaled and stared at Stan, who he spent his entire life with, whom he loved so much and it was as if his heart was threatening to jump out of his throat and right at Stan, blindly asking him to hold it.

Kyle was completely overwhelmed by the emotions he felt, so intense and burning that he decided that he could no longer keep them buried.  
“I’m in love with you”, he blurted out and was met with silence and his best friend gaping at him, open mouthed and speechless.  
The only noise that filled the room was the sound of the pause menu coming from Stan’s Television, happy sounding music prompting the player to resume their game.

Stan’s blue eyes were wide and his expression was impossible to read.  
Kyle had never felt so exposed and vulnerable than at his moment, looking back at Stan without blinking, like caught in an endless repeat of a second filled with a dangerous mix of fear and hope.  
With tears filling the corners of his eyes, Kyle searched for his voice, realization setting in that this had perhaps been the worst idea of his life.

“Stan? Please say something”  
Stan averted his eyes at Kyles words, as if he couldn’t stand the way Kyle looked at him, like seeing his friend this open was too much for him to bear.  
Kyle started picking at his nails, feeling as if he was a participant of a game show where the show masters dragged out the moments that led up to announcing if he had answered correctly.

“I’m sorry dude”, had been the last thing that Kyle had heard because he had scrambled off the bed then, the controller crashing down on the floor, and had rushed to the door, muttering “Just forget about this, alright?”  
Kyle was out the door before Stan could say another word and down the stairs and out of the house before Mrs. Marsh was able to call after him that he had forgotten his jacket.  
Only once he had been back in his own room he noticed that he had not only told Stan that he loved him but in tie with it also practically outed himself to his best friend.

There was a part of him, vicious and scared to the bones, that whispered to him that Stan would tell everyone, that tomorrow in school everyone would know and joke about him, and somehow the fact that he even considered his best friend betraying him like this, hurt more than having gotten rejected.

Stan had texted him in the evening, asking to talk about what had happened, but Kyle had told him there was nothing to talk about and Stan had never asked again.

**

For about a year after that Kyle had been aimlessly wandering through friends groups until he had settled for Craig.  
Craig had said once, in that brutally honest way of his, that the reason Kyle had seeked him out after his friendship with Stan broke was that there were some uncanny similarities between Craig and Stan.  
Of course Kyle had denied it right away and Craig had waved the protest off, saying that he didn’t care that he was just a cheap replacement.  
Kyle, being Kyle, had thought about Craig’s words for a long time but he had eventually come to the conclusion that even if that might’ve had the initial reason to hang out with Craig, he had moved on from that by now.

Craig was a good friend, if one ignored the fact that he always sounded completely uninterested unless it was about his guinea pig, the old show Red Racer, Space or Tweek Tweak.  
One thing that barely anyone knew about Craig was that he, like Kyle, was still hung up on his childhood love.  
He rarely spoke about it and Kyle didn’t push the topic because in return, Craig never spoke about Stan, but perhaps that was not only out of sympathy but mainly because out of a reason completely unknown to Kyle, Craig hated Stan.  
This came in handy because he avoided Stan like the pest and therefore spending time with Craig meant not having to spent time with Stan.

Instead he got to hang around Clyde who also filled him in on the details about Tweek and Craig because it turned out Clyde was an awful tattle tale that couldn’t shut up when he was tipsy.  
Everyone had been shocked when Tweek and Craig had broken up back in seventh grade, when high school had started but Clyde had told him that it had been a decision both of them made.  
Something about things being different in a new school, in a different town.  
If you could believe Clyde in his drunken state, both of them had been content with the decision for a while, being nothing but friends until, in Clydes words “Craig had a super heartfelt talk with me and was all like ‘Oh Clyde, I think I’m falling for Tweek ‘ ”.  
The way he mimicked Craig’s nasal voice had caused Kyle to send half his drink over the table, laughing.

Once Kyle asked Craig about it but Craig had only replied that Clyde was an idiot.  
His reaction made Kyle believe that yes, Clyde had been right about what he’d said, which did not mean Craig wasn’t right either, saying that Clyde was an idiot.

But even if Craig was good company, there was that wordless understanding missing that he used to have with Stan.  
No matter how often Kyle told himself that he did no longer need Stan, there was that dull aching ever present that longed for Stan and the way they used to be.  
There would always be a hole left in Kyle’s heart that had Stan’s shape and so far no friendship had managed to fill it.  
All the nights he spent inhaling books, learning for tests weeks in advance, or staring at pictures of Stan and himself, nothing stopped the beast inside his head from reminding him of what he’d lost.

**

At the dinner table, Ike eyed him over his plate filled with potatoes and sauce, like he tried to figure something out about his brother, as if a particularly hard math formula was written on his forehead.  
Since a few months, Ike had gone vegetarian, not impressed by any of the comments he’d gotten for it, and successfully convincing their Mother to accept it as well.  
When he had brought it up first, Kyle had remembered the time Stan had been a vegetarian and was close to making a joke about how that had ended until he had noticed that Ike had been too young back then to recall it now.  
It was another memory made between people that did not belong together anymore.

Stupidly enough he felt like an old man, whose friends had all died.  
He sure was a little overly dramatic sometimes.

Kyle tried to ignore Ike’s eyes on him while he swallowed down his food, thankful when his dad pulled Ike’s attention away by asking him about the test he’d written in Biology.  
Apparently it had gone well but knowing his Brother it might as well have been a lie to get their parents of his back.  
Ike did not care about school and his grades as much as Kyle did, rarely learning for his exams unless it was a class that he was truly interested in.  
It wasn’t as if Ike was dumb, he was quite the genius actually, but he was lazy, a fact that made their Mother see red.

Today she seemed satisfied with his answer and repeated her tale about the town meeting that she had told Kyle in the kitchen earlier on.  
“They seem to want to renovate the school, can you believe that? Finally.”  
“Really? Now that I’m in high school they’re renovating that shit hole? Bet those lucky bastards have no school while that’s happening”, Ike interrupted their mother, still munching on his potatoes.  
She glared at him and promptly snapped “Swallow before you speak young man, and no such words at the dinner table!”

Ike gave off a dirty chuckle and mumbled, only hearable or Kyle that sat right next to him, “Swallow, huh Kyle?”  
He wiggled his eyebrows and Kyle kicked him under the table  
“What did you say, Ike?” their father asked, but Ike quickly waved if off with a “Nothing Dad”

“They’ll close off the School area for a few weeks; the students will attend School in North Park.”  
“Well that calls for lots of work for the teachers“, their father commented while cutting the meat on his plate.  
He looked stressed, even more so now that he was older, hair starting to thin out and his beard turning grey. Studying his father’s face, Kyle asked himself if he would end up looking like that as well one day, worn out by work, and decided with his aspiration to become a lawyer as well, the answer was probably yes.  
Despite all the stress written into his father’s face, he still smiled happily as he sat at the dinner table, talking with his family.  
Sometimes Kyle saw the way his parents looked at each other and was thankful for the fact that they did not constantly fight like Stan’s or Kenny’s parents.  
Love was a damn fragile thing.

**

After dinner Kyle was met with the picture laying on his bed, silent reminder of the fact that he could not keep his distance from Stan and the memory of him.  
He pushed it under his pillow without looking at it another time, just as Ike barged into his room without knocking and Kyle turned to him like a thief caught in the act of committing a crime.

“Chill dude, it’s just me. No danger to your porn collection or something”, Ike laughed and brought a hand up to rub at one of the many pimples that painted his face ever since he had hit puberty.  
“Shut up I don’t have a porn collection”  
“Close the damn door”, Kyle added when Ike entered and his brother complied after rolling his eyes for Kyle to see.  
Then he sat down next to his older brother, “Come sit down next to me”  
“I’m already sitting next to you”, Kyle said, staring his brother dead in the eyes.  
“God damnit you’re really lame sometimes Kyle”, Ike replied and brought his naked feet up to sit cross-legged on Kyles bed.

“Did you know that Stan still calls you his best friend?”, Ike suddenly asked, eyes fixed at a blank spot on Kyles wall, expression serious.  
Kyle swallowed. It wasn’t as if they never talked about Stan but it usually occurred when Kyle was feeling particularly bad or with enough preparation beforehand. On the other hand it was very much like Ike to just dive head first into something, even when it came to conversations.

If there was one thing that Kyle hated it was crying in front of his brother. Even knowing that Ike did not ridicule him for it, it made him feel weird.  
Maybe it resulted from growing up with one emotion very present, anger, and therefore most and foremost taught the normality to get worked up about something easily, that Kyle did not quite know how to cope with any emotions besides that.  
Kyle preferred logic, a thing that had always differenced him from Stan, who was entirely made up on his emotions, which very often toppled down on him, burying him so deeply that he could not escape anymore.

“He what?” Kyle wasn’t sure how to react to that information, or how Ike acquired it.  
“Yeah, heard him talk about you yesterday at Starks Pond”  
Ike scratched the back of his neck where his hair was starting to get long enough to be tied into a small ponytail.  
“What were you doing at Starks…he talked about me?”  
“Thought you’d want to know that” Ike said, sounding a little bit triumphant, maybe because Kyle was distracted enough by the information that Stan was still talking about him to not ask further why he had been at the place known as the hangout for kids to get drunk at.  
“Yeah, he was all like ‘my best friend this, my best friend that’ to someone I don’t know. So of course I think, hey is he talking about my Bro? And when I listened more closely I heard him say ‘My best friend lives next to me’ and I think that makes it pretty damn obvious who he’s talking about”

“What the fuck?! We haven’t properly talked in ages but he still calls me his best friend?” Kyle’s voice was equally filled with anger, pure disbelief and sadness.  
He wasn’t sure if Stan was simply still using Kyle as the standard answer for best friend questions or if he, like Kyle, had never found anyone that had been able to take over that best friend status that Kyle had held.  
Maybe there was a hole in Stan’s life too, a hole that was Kyle shaped.

**

If Kyle’s life was a straight line, clean, full force until the end, perfection all the way, then Stan’s was a scribbled collection of ups and downs, full of knots, winding around the line that Kyle was made up of.  
Even if the distance between Kyle’s line and Stan’s parabolas grew sometimes, they always met once again, slamming together at full force because no matter how long their lines would go, it was impossible for them to untangle.

They were wound together.

**

Starks Pond was setting for many memories Kyle had made along the way.  
The snow crunched under his boots as he walked towards the water that was frozen now that the winter had settled in, holding South Park in its tight and unforgiving grip.  
When they were younger they used to go out on the frozen lake, carefully first, to test if it was strong enough to hold their weight yet.  
One time Stan had broken in and Kyle counted that to one of the worst moments in his entire life.  
As he stared out onto the lake he heard Stan’s screams for help in his head, remembering the way his heart had stopped, how he’d thought for the longest minutes in his life that Stan was dead.

Luckily Stan had just been a little cooled down but Kyle had never been able to forget the way this moment had made him feel.

Kyle drew a little circle into the snow that had covered the ice with the tip of his boot and inhaled the cold air.  
When they had been four, he and Stan had pretended to be dragons, puffing out their breath into the winter air, watching it come out in small clouds.

The Ice cracked slightly under his shoes as he set one foot onto the lake. If he smoothed the snow away he could make out the dirty water underneath.  
His mother had never allowed him to swim in Starks Pond, even when most people of his class had went, Kyle had to sit at the side and watch them.  
Sometimes he had dipped his toe into the water just to see how it felt.  
It had been ice cold and had made Kyle glad that he had an excuse not to go inside.

At the nearby benches that he had passed when he had walked towards the lake, there had been empty bottles of beer laying around, as well as burnt out stubs of cigarettes.  
He could well imagine Stan sitting there, holding one of those bottles and drinking himself into oblivion.  
Kyle knew he should’ve been there, right when this had all started, Kyle should’ve been more persistent to help Stan, but he hadn’t, he had given up too easily on his best friend because seeing Stan like that had brought up emotions in Kyle that he didn’t want to feel.  
So he had just let himself get frustrated and the logical thing to do had been to distance himself.

Maybe he had pushed Stan out of their friendship like that.

The ice was cracking underneath him once more as he positioned his second foot on the smooth surface.

“It’s not strong enough to carry you yet”, he heard a voice behind him, so familiar yet so foreign at the same time.  
Stan’s voice had deepened significantly through puberty but the way he pronounced words was still the same, that tone swinging in his voice was unmistakably Stan.

Kyle turned around and took a few steps of the ice until he stood steady in the snow again, a few meters away from Stan who was only wearing his letterman jacket over a shirt with some odd animal print.  
Kyle had seen that jacket from behind so often, when he had walked past Stan standing at his locker, ‘Marsh’ printed on the back in bold, red letters.  
Stan was still playing football, the shining quarterback of the team.  
Kyle had no longer been allowed to play football when the first kid had broken his leg during a game, but he hadn’t pitied the loss too much, he preferred Basketball anyways.

“Thanks for the heads up”, Kyle answered and nodded at Stan who was moving towards him now.  
It had been a while since he had been so close to Stan and hanging around Craig all the time, he had forgotten how much shorter Stan was.  
“Sure dude”  
Stan had the hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket and Kyle asked himself if there was a flask hidden in one of them. He couldn’t imagine another reason for Stan to come out here.

“Starks Pond is really nice when frozen. Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Stan shuffled on his feet and Kyle nodded, not able to take his eyes off Stan.  
There was a plaster on his cheek, probably covering up a bruise he had gotten during practice, or during a fight, Kyle didn’t know.  
All he knew was that his heart hung heavy in his chest in Stan’s company.  
It was what had made him stay away for so long, his heart wanted to feel at home, warm in the company of someone he knew, had known, better than anyone else, but his mind was aware that they were strangers now and that all warmth he’d feel would be nothing but the afterglow of a fire long burned out.

There was something dark clouding over the piercing blue of Stan’s eyes, like Stan was completely broken below the surface, only held together by the shell of his body and the alcohol that was practically running thought his veins by now.  
Kyle wasn’t sure if his eyes looked different to Stan too now, if they had stopped burning and were nothing but ashes now, but he imagined they were.

“I feel like when I’m around you I am in an empty home. I know every nook and cranny, every hidden corner and secret, it’s where I used to be most comfortable, but I don’t live there anymore.”  
Kyle looked down at Stan, into those tired eyes and searched for the boy that had been his best friend.  
“Where not best friends anymore, Stan”, he added then

There’s no surprise in Stan’s expression, like he’s known all along but he still looked defeated when he nodded.  
“I know, but sometimes I wish we still were. Sometimes I just gotta hold onto that. When I can’t really remember who I’m supposed to be then it’s the only thing I know, how to be your best friend. Maybe a part of me wants to be that Stan again, that Stan that you want me to be”

Kyle curled up his toes inside his thick winter boots and he suddenly felt very weightless, like drifting away on Stan’s words, to take him by his hands and wash him clean of everything until those dull eyes were blue again.  
But he’s aware that it’s impossible, they are no longer nine years old and they can’t go back to that.  
“Perhaps a part of me wanted you to be who I once knew again, but I’ve learnt that can’t happen. We’re different now”

Kyle had not expected Stan to grab his hands at that but they were holding his own, warm from staying inside his pockets and the palms a little sweaty.  
“You’ll always be my best friend Kyle, even if we’re sixty and haven’t talked since thirty years”  
He sounded needy and ripped open and it hurt to see him like this and even more so Kyle hated having to be the reasonable one again, wanting nothing more than to fall into Stan’s arms and stay there forever.  
“You’re holding on to something Stan. Don’t you remember how it used to be when we were best friends, at the end? It wasn’t working anymore”  
Kyle is burning inside, and it’s not that usual fire that came from his own anger and ambition, it’s a foreign fire, that someone else has enflamed there, one that will crumble him up and turn him into ashes.  
It’s painful, it hurt as is swallowed all of his insides, licked at the edges of his emotions until they broke apart.  
Kyle was standing aflame, waiting until he was consumed whole.

“You said-...don’t you love me anymore?”  
Stan clenched his hands tight, as if he felt Kyle burn to ashes and hoped he could push out the fire with his touch.  
“Stan, shit I do, I still love you. I’m that damn Idiot that is still in love with someone he hardly talks to anymore”  
Kyle felt furious and desperate at the same time, brows furrowed while tears started collecting in the corners of his eyes.

“Then we can-“ Stan started but Kyle interrupted him, angry tears running down his cheeks, the cold air immediately made his skin burn where they had left wet trails.  
“I can’t Stan. I’ve spend years in love with you, beating myself up over feelings I have for you, holding onto a friendship that was long gone, I can’t go back to that, no matter how much I want to.”  
Stan was crying too, the tight grip on Kyles hand loosened, nothing but weakly holding onto him.

Stan didn’t look beautiful as he cried, he never had, all puffy eyes and snot coming from his nose but Kyle knew he had never loved Stan more than he did in this moment.  
He was made up out of Stan and untangling himself from him was rubbing Kyle raw, tearing him open, and smudging his perfect line.

“Maybe you’re right”, Stan was sobbing now, sniffling at the same time to keep the snot from leaving his nose, “but I just, everything feels like shit these days, no matter what I try, it doesn’t go away. I’ve felt like this since seven years now Kyle, I’m so tired of this.”  
It has become hard to understand him now, reduced to a crying mess and Kyle was certain he’d catch a cold, dressed so light in such a cold weather.  
He’s aware that this doesn’t change anything but when he pulled Stan against his chest, arms wrapped around his shoulders, with Stan’s tears wetting his jacket, it felt like he was a steady line again, that hole in his heart filled again with the only thing that could ever fit into it.

Kyle rubbed Stan’s back, unsure of what to do, but somehow it made Stan breathe a little slower, maybe because this was exactly what Kyle had always done when he had tried to comfort Stan, awkwardly rubbing Stan’s body while he was curled up against him.

He didn’t hold the answers of the universe in his hands, like Stan hoped him to, and Stan could no longer change the world for Kyle, they were a tangled mess, two types of lines that should not cross but that had morphed into one so long ago that they did not know how to be two separates anymore.

Stan lifted his head from Kyle’s chest and looked up at him with red eyes and snot hanging from the tip of his nose, cheeks rosy and Kyle leaned down to kiss him.  
His lips tasted salty like tears and Kyle tried not to think about the snot part of it.  
Instead he focused on the way Stan’s lips felt against his, warm and mostly very wet but there was something about kissing Stan that lit the very own flame inside Kyle again, fueling every part of his body with a warmth he had longed for so long.

Stan grabbed Kyle’s jacket to pull him down a little more to kiss him back.  
It was like he could taste all the sadness of Stan’s lips, like all of his emotions, the heaviness poured into the kiss and in return Kyles flames licked at Stan’s corners to make him burn with Kyle.  
Kyle had never believed all the tales of kisses so good they stopped the world from turning but when he kissed Stan, when Stan kissed him, they felt ageless, like time didn’t exist.  
As if the world broke away and there was only Stan, all around him.

It was a clumsy mess, too desperate, too needy but it had Kyle wishing he wouldn’t need air, to stay like this until they ran out of lives and would fall apart, together, tangled in each other.

They stared at each other when they had to separate, both breathing heavily, filling their lungs with air.  
“I can’t fix you, Stan, and you can’t change the world for me”  
“I know”, Stan said, smoothing over Kyles jacket as if he was afraid he had left stains on Kyle, as if his fingerprints weren’t already all over his life.  
He reached into his pocket and pulled the flask out of it that Kyle had expected to find in there.

Kyle eyed it as Stan popped open the cap and lifted it to his lips, before he stopped and handed it to Kyle.  
“What do you want me to do with it? Drink? I’m not really...I don’t like alcohol much”  
“Yeah, Kenny said you can’t hold your liquor for shit, and that you shouted at him for encouraging my alcoholism or something”

Kyle rolled his eyes, “If he gives you alcohol all the time, he’s surely not helping you”  
He turned the flask in his hands.  
“I liked hearing that you still cared about me, I mean I hated that you were doing that speech shit where you tell people what they are doing wrong and stuff, but I liked knowing that you shouted at someone because of me”, Stan chuckled awkwardly as if he was embarrassed for admitting it.

“If something is wrong I’ll sure as hell not be quiet about it!”, Kyle turned the flask upside down watching the liquor pouring out of it, making a dark puddle in the snow, then he reeled his arm backwards to give his toss enough force.  
The flask hit the ice before it cracked at the silver thing sank into the lake.

“Hey! My Grandpa bought this” Stan yelled and hit Kyle’s arm but when Kyle eyed him, Stan didn’t look all too angry, looking out on the lake, where the flask had disappeared, Stan seemed almost amused  
“You probably killed a fish with that thing”, he added then, pushing his hands back into the pockets of his jacket.  
“If you want to jump in and try to give the fish some CPR, be my guest” Kyle shrugged and that was enough to send Stan into a fit of laughter.

It was almost too easy to be like this, next to Stan at Starks Pond, like he had spent years in the dark grabbing for something only to find Stan again with his hands outstretched as well, entangling their fingers, noticing that even after years they were still the perfect fit.  
They could never go back to how things were, everything that had happened had littered that way with heavy stones forever, they were not quite friends, but not strangers.  
With Stan at his side again Kyle asked himself how he had ever been able to think he and Stan had been Strangers.

**

If Stan would be a colour he would be blue, deep, calm but sad at times.  
Kyle would be green, alive and bright, a perfect colour by itself, not in need of Blue by its side.  
But if Green would be picked apart, it would always be made up out of Blue, like Kyle would always be made out of Stan.

Woven deep into its core, Blue would always be a part of Green.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading  
> I hope you enjoyed this  
> Kudos and Comments are appreciated but obviously not mendatory  
> Big fucking thanks if you do either or both tho <3
> 
> And as always thanks to my faithful beta-reader WrongDecision, you're an angel <3
> 
> I'm as mentioned above currently writing but it's not purely fanfiction as it features my OC as the main character. Therefore I'm unsure wether or not I'll post it if it's done.


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